Chapter 70: A Day in the Life: Clark

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman and Flash belong to DC. No infringement is intended.

The sound of his alarm clock tore Clark from a rather weird dream involving half a dozen Amazons, his mother looking at him disapprovingly, and Kona riding a giant kangaroo while complaining about not being allowed to fight alien robots in the 30th century. Shaking his head, he checked the calendar on his wall. Another two weeks to go until he was no longer grounded.

Was it too weird if someone who was being punished for time travelling complained about time passing too slowly? Probably.

Getting up, Clark brushed his teeth and shaved. He only had the faintest bit of stubble so far, but given his invulnerability, it was still a somewhat complicated procedure. Using a reflective piece of metal forged at their fortress, he reflected his own heat vision back at himself to burn the stubble off his face. The first time he had tried that, he had given himself a serious burn, but by now he had it down.

Walking down, he entered the kitchen. "Morning," he mumbled.

"Morning, Clark," his mom greeted him, giving him a brief hug. "I'll be out for most of the day, so I trust you to..."

"Yeah, I know," he interrupted her, having heard the spiel before. "Straight home after school, no leaving the farm unless there is an emergency. Still grounded, I get it."

"You do the crime, you do the time," she reminded him, doing that annoying thing where she ruffled his hair. He wished she would quit with that, though his treacherous lips threatened to spread into a smile.

"As long as it's not time travel," Kona chirped, coming into the kitchen as well. Clark had no idea how any person could be this cheerful this early in the morning.

"You're just jealous," Clark shot back, smirking. He knew very well that Kona was miffed about Wally and him having travelled to the future without her. She stuck out her tongue at him.

"Behave, children," mom reminded them both as they all sat down at the breakfast table. "You still planning on that visit, Kona?"

"Yeah," his sister replied, looking a bit forlorn. "Not really sure why I bother, but..."

"It's okay. You do what you need to do, baby girl!"

He really wondered what Kona was thinking, going on those visits. Nothing good would come from it, he was sure. He was distracted from his thoughts when Uncle Jonathan came in (really great-uncle, or grandpa, but he had fallen into the habit of calling him uncle a long time ago). Fresh eggs from the barn, yum.

"So... Kona is an Amazon now?" Lana asked as they walked to their next class.

"Kind of, yeah," Clark replied, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "Well, mom is one, so she was kind of a shoe-in."

"Does that make you an Amazon, too?" she asked, grinning.

"No, for some weird reason it's a female-only club," he replied, deadpan. "I was prepared to tell them how discriminating that is, but I was too polite for that."

"Well, on the other hand you are now a member of that Future League thing, right? And Kona isn't."

"It's called the Legion of Superheroes," he corrected her, and then grinned. "And yes!"

Lana smiled, but there was something a bit brittle about her smile, he noticed.

"Cool," she simply said.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Sure, I...," she began, but then stopped. Looking up at him, she seemed to wrestle with a decision. "Clark, I know you're supposed to head right home after school, but... you think we can talk? Just the two of us?"

"Uh, sure."

"Okay, great! Let's head to class then."

Without waiting for him, she fast-walked straight into the classroom, leaving him staring after her. He had the distinct feeling that he was missing something here.

After school ended, they walked the long way home to their respective farms. Technically Clark was doing as told, going directly home. No one had said anything about how fast he should go. For all that Lana had wanted to talk to him, though, she had been silent for the entire walk so far.

"What's bothering you?" he finally asked, figuring that she was not going to start anytime soon.

She looked up at him and sighed. Lana was well on her way to becoming a very beautiful woman, he realized. Well, he had always known that she was pretty, but at 17 she was rapidly turning from pretty to stunning.

"I just...," she began, but stopped again.

"Hey, you can tell me anything," he told her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Best friends in the world, remember?"

"I remember," she said, putting her own hand on top of his. "Clark, in the last few years, you have been in outer space, travelled through time, fought elemental beings, helped form a teenage super team, and visited a parallel world, right?"

"Uh, yes," he said, not seeing where she was going.

"You know what the most exciting thing was that I did during that time? I visited my grandmother in Florida."

They kept walking. "What are you trying to say, Lana?" he asked.

"I'm saying… God, that sounds so petty when I speak it out loud, but... I think I'm losing you, Clark."

He shook his head. "Lana, you're never going to lose me. I..."

"You're a superhero, Clark," she interrupted him. "Your friends are superheroes, too, some of them living 1,000 years in the future. Your sister and mother are superheroes, too, and honorary members of an immortal tribe of warrior women on top of that. You're in a team with a magician. I'm just... I'm just plain old Lana from Smallville, that's it!"

He stopped and turned to face her. "None of that matters to me, Lana. You're still..."

"Do you have any idea how small I feel every time you tell me your newest adventure? I have nothing to tell you in return. We used to go on treasure hunts together or... or went swimming in the creek, but how can that possibly compete with fighting alien robots or flying through space?"

He grabbed her by the shoulders, wanting to put a stop to the nonsense that was tumbling out of her mouth. "This is not a competition, Lana! You are my best friend. Sure, we might not be spending as much time together as we used to, but that doesn't change anything!"

"It does for me, Clark," she said, staring up at him. "I... you were always my best friend, my... my brother, for all intents and purposes. But... you have a sister now, one with super powers. You have friends with super powers. I... I've become superfluous."

"Neither Kona nor Wally nor anyone else can ever replace you, Lana," he implored her, not quite believing what was happening here. "You are... you are Lana. My Lana!"

"Am I?" she asked him, a sad smile on her face.

"Of course you are, what…"

She cut him off again, but not with words this time. Instead, she stepped closer to him, wound her arms around his neck, pulled him down to her level and smashed her mouth onto his. For a second he was too stunned to respond, not really understanding what was happening, but then his body responded while his brain was stuck in idle.

Fortunately for the two teenagers, the path they were walking on was used but sparingly and well hidden from view by growing corn.

Twenty minutes later the two teenagers were awkwardly walking next to each other again, continuing on their way home as if nothing had happened. Only their slightly skewed clothing and the dirt clinging to their hair showed that everything was different.

"So... we did… that," Clark said, rubbing the back of his neck in the vain hope that it would somehow make this any less awkward.

"Yeah," she replied, not looking at him. "Yeah, we did."

They kept walking.

"I always, you know," Lana began after a minute. "I mean, with you being an alien an all..."

"Yeah, our species are... pretty much identical... there."

Silence fell again while they walked on. Clark opened his mouth to start speaking a few times, but nothing sensible came to mind. Lana was chewing on her bottom lip, still slightly swollen, but kept silent as well. Finally they reached the fork in the road where the paths to the Kent and Lang farm diverged.

"I'll see you in school tomorrow then," Lana said, not looking him in the eye, and walked away from him towards her home.

"Yeah," he replied. "See you then, Lana."

He turned and walked toward the Kent farm.

Arriving back at the farm, Clark managed to get up to his room without encountering anyone who might inquire why he had taken so long to get back home after school. Letting himself fall onto his bed, he wondered what to do now. Was Lana still his best friend? Was she still a friend at all? Or had their stupidity destroyed a life-long friendship?

He really needed to talk about this with someone. Normally his go-to person for something like this was Lana, but that was not really feasible right now, he feared. Who else then? Wally? He did consider him his best male friend, but he was uncertain whether Wally actually had any experience with girls. They usually only talked about superhero stuff. Besides, Wally was probably still a bit pissed at him.

Two weeks ago

"Hey, Flash," Clark greeted his friend. Normally he would have headed over to Keystone City himself to talk to Wally, given his super speed it was not much of a journey. He was grounded, though, so instead he called him on the special untraceable cell phone he had given him. Mom had built them for use among Earth's superhero community, given that calling people at home about alien invasions would be kind of weird.

"Hello, Kal," Flash replied, sounding rather peeved.

"Hey, I... I just wanted to warn you," Clark said. "Mom is kind of pissed about the whole time travel thing and she... well..."

"Let me guess," Flash interrupted him. "She said she was going to come over to Keystone City and rat me out to my parents."

Clark sighed. "She was already there, wasn't she?"

"What gave you that idea?" Wally asked sarcastically. "And just out of interest, when were you going to tell me that you – and your mom, too – knew my secret identity?"

Another sigh. "Yeah, sorry about that, but... you know, X-Ray vision. You're not exactly wearing a lead-lined mask."

"Are you using the same excuse when you use that entirely uncontrollable X-Ray vision on girls?"

"I'm sorry... Wally," he finally said. "I wanted to tell you my identity, too, but... well, my mom..."

"I'm not too fond of your mom right now," Wally interrupted him again. "Not when she just told my parents about me being the Flash and caused me to be grounded for a month!"

Clark closed his eyes, massaging his temples. "Anything I can do?"

"Yeah, tell your mom to keep her meddling to her own family!" He hung up.

They had not really talked since then. Wally had sent him a short message a few days later, telling him that he was sorry for flipping out on him like that, but that he needed some time to square things with his parents. Probably not the best time to have a heart to heart with him about how he just had sex with a girl.

Looking through the walls of his room, Clark saw Uncle Jonathan walking into the barn. The old tractor had broken down again yesterday, so he was probably going to work on that. He chuckled, knowing that mom had offered more than once to either buy a brand-new state-of-the-art tractor for him or replace the constantly-dying engine with one made from Kryptonian tech, but Jonathan had always refused. Clark suspected he just enjoyed tinkering with that old thing.

Getting up, he walked out of the house and went to join him.

"Hey, need some help?" he asked.

Jonathan looked up at him. "Sure, Clark."

For the next ten minutes or so, they just tinkered with the old engine without really achieving much apart from getting dirty. Clark tried to recall the last time it had been just the two of them. Jonathan was the closest thing he had to a father figure in his life. In many ways he was his father, despite officially being his great uncle / grandfather. Jonathan had even been the one to give him the talk a few years back. Of course, a bit later his mom had given him the talk again, after revealing that he was actually an alien.

Realizing that his mind was wandering, Clark decided to approach the topic.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Jonathan replied. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, uh... did you ever... I mean... how do you deal with..."

Jonathan laughed. "You had sex, right?"

Clark stared at him, open-mouthed. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Son, do you think you're the first teenage boy to get totally confused after sex?"

Clark sat down, wiping his grease-covered hands on a rag. "Well, it's not like it was my first time, but..."

"Last year in May, right?" Jonathan asked, smirking when Clark was completely aghast once again. He laughed. "It's been a while since I was your age, Clark, but I do remember how teenage boys act once they've managed to score. It's the strut."

"I didn't strut," Clark complained, blushing.

Getting serious, Jonathan leaned closer to him. "So what's got you so confused about this one if it wasn't your first?"

Clark took a deep breath. "It was… it was Lana."

Jonathan nodded, almost as if he had expected that. "What brought it on?"

"She... she told me that she is afraid of losing me, because my life is filled with superheroes, time travel, Amazons, and such while she is just plain old Lana. Her words, not mine."

He nodded again, rubbing his chin. "Lana is at a point of her life where she is trying to figure out her place in the world, Clark," he explained. "Probably feels a bit of wanderlust, that Smallville is too small and constricting, that sort of thing. The fact that her best friend is a superhero who gets up to all sorts of crazy adventures probably intensifies that."

"But I don't get it," Clark complained. "She says she feels... small, next to me. But I never did anything to..."

"I'm sure you didn't," Jonathan interrupted him, "but tell me Clark: how do you feel when Karen ends up fighting super villains and saving the world while you are stuck in school? Or when, almost every single time Superboy is mentioned in the media, he is referred to as 'Superwoman's son'?"

Clark stopped, musing this over. "I... well…"

"It's bothering you a bit, isn't it?" Jonathan replied for him. "You don't want it to, because it's silly. Moreover, you don't want to resent Karen for it, because it's certainly not her fault, but still. There is that tiny little part of yourself that feels... small, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he admitted after a moment.

"It's the same with Lana, I'd bet," Jonathan told him. "And it's no one's fault, it's just the way things are. And just like anyone else she needs to figure out how to deal with it."

He met Clark's eyes. "Are you in love with her?"

Clark mused that over for a bit, and then shook his head. "No. No, I don't think so. I mean, I do love her, but..."

"Like a friend," Jonathan said, causing Clark to nod. "I figured. And Lana? Do you think she is in love with you?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I never thought so before today, but after what happened..."

"Well, son," Jonathan said, slapping his shoulder. "Only way you're going to find out is by talking to her. Let her gather her thoughts a bit, sleep on it, and talk to her tomorrow."

Clark nodded. He was not looking forward to that conversation at all, but he saw no way around it, either. The last thing he wanted was to lose Lana.

Clark kept himself busy completing his homework and doing chores at normal human speed for the rest of the day. Some part of him wanted to go over and talk to Lana right away, but Uncle Jonathan was probably right that they both needed a little time to let things settle.

"Hey, Clark," Kona greeted him as she came home.

"Hey, Kona," he replied. "How was the latest visit to the Big House?"

"Does anyone really call it that?" she asked. "And... I'm not sure. Can we... you know, not talk about it?"

He smiled. "Sure! Hey, we can talk about the 30th century if you want."

She lightly punched his shoulder. "Nah, I'd rather talk about riding kangaroos on Paradise Island, doofus!"

"How about lighting up stuff with heat vision?" he offered.

"How about making stuff blow up just by touching it?" she shot back.

They walked up to their rooms, still going back and forth. Clark enjoyed it, but it also made him a bit forlorn. Times were he had bantered this way with Lana.

He heard the click of the front door and Martha greeting someone.

"Are we expecting company?" Kona asked, having heard the door as well.

Clark focused his eyes, looking through the floor and towards the front door. For a moment his brow furrowed in confusion, but then the confusion quickly gave way to panic.

"Let's go," he simply told Kona, grabbing her by the shoulder and super-speeding towards the front door.

End Chapter 70

Author's Note: Okay, I had not really planned to have Clark and Lana doing what they did when I began writing this chapter. It was supposed to be mostly about Clark and Kona's growing sibling rivalry, but Lana kind of changed the topic. In a way, she is similar to Lex Luthor, feeling small and insignificant in the face of a vastly more powerful alien being. Unlike Lex, she is not trying to compensate for that feeling by becoming a murderous sociopath, so there's that.

Up next: Kona's day.